Obviously as an age group players improve with age. And obviously pitchers improve their control as they mature. Pointing that out doesn't matter. Also, I don't get your insistence on looking at such a small sample size of Johnson's stats from last year returning from TJ instead of the hundreds of IP he has logged before 2008. So your post about his BB rate last year being equal to this guy and that guy or better than this guy or that guy would only convince me if I was sold on his 2008 statistics - which I obviously am not considering all of the factors that I've brought up so far.

Let's take a look at qualified starting pitchers who were not rookies and had a higher fastball velocity last year than Johnson's career average:

Ubaldo Jimenez - 288 career IP with continued control problems.Felix Hernandez - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average.Ervin Santana - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average.Josh Beckett - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average (other than 2001 when he had 24IP).A.J. Burnett - wasn't until age 27 that he had his BB rate below 4.00.Tim Lincecum - aberrationEdwin Jackson - 456 career IP with continued control problems.CC Sabathia - aberrationJustin Verlander - 600 career IP with variable control problems.Zack Greinke - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average (other than 2006 when he had 6IP).Matt Garza - 3.2 career BB:9Mike Pelfrey - just not goodRoy Halladay - 2.1 career BB:9Daniel Cabrera - 840 career IP with continued control problems.Roy Oswalt - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average.Ben Sheets - never had a MLB season with a BB rate as high as Johnson's career average.

With list, other than a few notable exceptions, those with low BB rates kept low BB rates, and those with higher BB rates tended to keep them. At the same time, look at all the other hard throwing pitchers who will never make the major leagues because they cannot improve their control.

I like Johnson for 09. He is very young and very good. Most people will overlook him because he missed so much time and there isn't a lot of hype surrounding him. He picked up a few MPH and he pitched very well upon his return without any problems so there is no reason to be down on him IMO. Especially since he should be available well after most good pitchers are off the board, I would definitely target him.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin

I am not sold on Cliff Lee, just like I was not sold on Fuasto Carmona last year. One of those 2 guys has to show me more than one good year to be taken early in my draft. I will let others take the risk with Lee this year.